


Divine Lassitude of Limb

by whiskeypants



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Challenge: Diamonds and Pearls, Epistolary, First Time, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 17:04:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13252686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeypants/pseuds/whiskeypants
Summary: Bunny's with a rent boy, but he can't let go of his daydreamsof his school crush/pen pal.





	Divine Lassitude of Limb

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esbe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esbe/gifts).



My dear Raffles,

I daresay this letter follows too closely on the heels of my last, as I have yet to receive your response. I shall wait until I have two letters of yours in return, else we’ll keep crossing each other in the post. After so many years waiting for your letters to wend their way from the farthest reach of the globe, I am not used to the speed at which your letters arrive from the country.

I wouldn’t write, but I’ve only gone and had a fall, and broken my wrist. You can see from my handwriting that everything is difficult. It’s a silly thing, but I remember you once telling me about a fellow you met at the baths. You said he reminded you of old Perry at school and he’d come and stayed with you a bit at the Albany when you had a sprain.

I don’t suppose you know anyone like that to come and give me a hand? I couldn’t stick a nurse.

Yours,

Bunny

 

_Sent round a johnnie, he’s there on my word, so be a good chap. Write and tell me all about it. A. J. R._

 

_Here’s the second note. Never dreamt you had such stuff in you! I had no idea you were a chap of that sort. Be sure you write. A. J. R._

 

My dear Raffles,

You have been laughing at me, I see. To tell you the truth, I almost mistook Alex for you at first. I wonder, would I know you in the street, if our paths were to cross? This fellow wore a moustache. He combs his hair back, and you never did.

I realise now, that when I knew you at school I played an unwitting part in a dark play. All the while I imagined I was Damon to your Pythias, only to see now that I was opening the door for you to slip in and out of a life of dissipation. Why did you never tell me? I would never have given you away. 

I’ve followed you through that door, now.

If you turn from me in disgust, then you may burn this now and that will be the end of it. But you asked me to ‘tell you all about it.’ In fact, I think you meant for these things to happen. In this matter, I have no one else to tell.

You must have sent Alex the day you received my letter, for he was here like an arrow. I was so taken aback when I met him that I could scarcely speak. I suppose I stuttered out polite enough of a greeting, for he passed a quiet morning in my rooms before we agreed he would stay on a week and see me settled. 

He has your pale eye, but unlike you he is a quiet man of the exquisite type. When he wasn’t helping me, he was curled up in a chair, reading, filling the air with the strong thick sweetness of his Turkish tobacco. I remember you as always in motion. Having kept up your cricket, I think you would find the inactivity of my rooms stifling. I picture you pacing my rooms, the air full of lively conversation. When I knew you, you were not yet grown into your long limbs and large hands. By now, you must be broad-shouldered and tall, with the bronzed skin and calloused hands of an athlete and the ready wit with which you charmed us all at school. 

You tell me to be a good chap. Perhaps Alex wrote to you already and told you if I was. Perhaps he is with you now! Well, I can give you my side of it, at least.

Oh, it was beastly of you, A. J.! You really should have given me a hint, at least. I hadn’t the faintest idea that first evening that anything was expected of me. It was only the next day, a marvelous day, for Alex is tolerably good company for all he is short on conversation, that I suspected that I had not behaved as he anticipated. This much he confirmed.

My rooms are well-appointed, and I have my own bath. It is a slipper tub, with lion’s paws to allow a warming pan beneath. He helped me out of my clothes, he helped me into the bath, and then he helped me to damnation.

For the sake of old times,

Bunny

 

_Somebody told me that C., fagged for you, or I would have sent a girl. Truth, now. You can write me as full an account of last week as of all the others. I did specifically ask you to tell me all about it. How’s the wrist? A.J.R._

 

You devil!

I believe you mean it. I cannot sign this, for obvious reasons. I worry that the very sending of this missive implicates you in my crimes. Perhaps I am still dazzled by my own daring, for I can hardly think on the week A. was here without a fever seizing my imagination and burning away every thought but most perverse. 

Oh A. J., I’ve sunk so low. Surely you know already. If you want nothing more to do with me, I won’t blame you. 

My inclinations were watered and put down roots at our old school. I look back on those years as the best years of my life. 

You were the best friend I had, though you took little notice of me beyond tasking me with oiling your bats, cribbing your latin, and keeping watch for you some nights. Despite this thin acquaintance, your friendship sheltered me from bullying. The nights that I waited for your signal at the west window of the boot-room, were nights away from the japes and stifled crying of the fourth form dormitory.

When it was my turn to head a house, I deliberately chose the least liked boy, to shield him by my attention. You must have done more for me than I realised, however; for C. was sent down along with one of the eleven my last Christmas. The chief called me in, but nothing I could say made any difference. I took six of the best for nothing. It seemed hard, for C. would not have done such a thing unless led to it.

I am still considered pretty, by the standards set at school. By keeping to my own set, I'm a member of a club where there is no remonstrance against hair that reaches my collar. I never have anything to do with the back rooms, and I've never wanted to. Your matches were the only thing that has stirred my blood and caused me to shout. I haven’t seen a match at Lord’s since you left for Australia.

 

When I opened the door upon Alex, I was certain for a brief moment he was you. I would have blushed, I would have cried out, I would have clasped your hand, but for the certainty that nothing so wonderful could happen to me. Nothing could be more unlikely than that my most cherished dream would come true on a Monday afternoon in the winter, at my Cliveden Chambers rooms. I split in two: I watched myself invite A. in. I took his hat and coat. I mixed him a whiskey and soda and I lit his sweet-smelling oriental cigarette. Sullivans, he said, from the Burlington Arcade.

All the while, we seemed to carry on a silent communication. I think I understood what he wanted when his eyes followed me. Yet we spoke as if unaware of these treacherous currents swirling beneath us. We carryed on a conversation I have no memory of, whilst my heart splintered into dust as I realised A. was not you at all, but some stranger. You were never so unassuming, you never sipped gingerly from a glass nor tucked your feet under you on the settee. When we were in school, my hair under your large palm, my whole body alive to the weight of your arm across my shoulders, your laugh was the only hammer that could make my body ring with the joy of being young — in my mind I ached for the sensation of being near to you once more.

For a whole day and a night, I was a good chap to your johnnie. I watched myself play the host as I lost myself in my memories of how you sounded, weary and excited, and the acrid, lusty smell of your rooms after a match. I only came to myself the second morning, when A. began to undress me for the bath he had requested for my rooms. The glass in my hand sweat in the steam of the bath. Had I asked A. for a second drink, a third? All was hot, lazy and natural. It made perfect sense that A. set his shirt aside so as not to get it wet when he washed my hair. And after his hands had pushed the hair from eyes, it followed for him to laugh agreeably at the lack of hair on my chest.

“Manders, I’ll never get a lather going here,” he said. He must have read my thoughts for though I never said a word, when I knelt up he swiped the sandalwood bar lower, and lower still. I came painfully back to myself, a rush of apprehension sharpening my awareness.

“I say, Manders, however did you hide such a tremendous tosser!” He said, eyes sparkling. It reminded me of your look as I helped you from the rope in through the window, smelling of tobacco and beer and perfume.

His hand came to where the hairs grow thicker, and the soap slipped away as he spread his fingers into the darker thatch that framed my manhood.

“Alright, Manders?” His moustache tickled my ear. The past and present were collided in my mind. Your laugh rang in my ears, the blood roared in my veins, and my prick rose to half-standing.

“Alright,” I said, “ — tighter — ” and then I gasped to hear myself say such a thing, and then I couldn’t think at all as he did as I bid, my mouth commanding him and he obeying, one arm around my back and steadying my hip, his hand pumping away.

“Oh, you’re a fine size, I can scarcely close my hand around you.” As he spoke he pressed his head into my neck, and nosed beneath my ear. “Put your hand above mine, now, show me the way of it.”

The curve of his smile, the curl in his hair in the steam, brought back all the pain and confusion of fifteen. I tugged at myself, furious for relief, my blood boiling with shame. I was ashamed for myself, naked and panting before a fellow I hardly knew, ashamed for him, as he was more at ease with his bare chest pressed to my back and his hand on my prick than he’d been at any previous moment in my company, and ashamed for you, for that libertine young rake of seventeen that took any number of girls in town and fags at school except the one who waited to raise a rope for you as the hours ticked on in the loneliest room of the school.

I had a hand on myself as he cradled my balls. He pressed up behind them, pulling me to his chest. I was wild at that point. I tugged frantically, rubbing my red-hot cockhead against him on each stroke, until I spent, howling. The delicious physical sensation of my swollen head pushing against his taut stomach in the slick of my spend contrasted sharply with the cold fear that gripped me directly after. I nearly wept, the enormity of what I had done rushing into my mind like an icy flood.

For all I did not know A., he read me like a book. He held me, murmuring soothing nonsense, as my body jerked and trembled in his arms. That night, he followed me into my bed. We passed a ridiculous three days making such a mess of my sheets that I burnt them rather than send them out to be washed.

We never again reached the height of that first night, for I felt sick and anxious by turns, but he taught me to treat him as he treated me. I learned how to kiss a fellow until he is drunk from it, and how to laugh as if we we were not locked out of paradise, but in it. Nothing mattered more than his flesh joined to mine and his love kiss on my lips. The shock of self knowledge only increased my anxiety.

I gained a taste for Sullivan cigarettes, whiskey from the bottle, and meals on a tray in bed. The tender rawness of my aching muscles contrasted with the soothing gentleness of his embrace; by these, I was newborn to a life I had not suspected existed. The thought that your arms had perhaps held him in just the same manner, and this comfort was passing to me, consoled me as I faced my own eyes in the mirror to shave the scant hairs on my lip. 

Whilst A. was with me, a creeping unease kept me indoors. Since he left me, a sickening tide has risen in my heart. I am sure it will overtake me and drag me into ruin.

Do you think it was I who corrupted C.? I swear to you, I never played those games at school. When A.’s hands were on me, I only thought of you. You sent your angel to lead me to mortal sin, and I am so far gone that I rue not this, but that you didn’t care to do it in person.

I remind you that you asked me for the truth.

If you want me, I remain,

Your friend.

 

_I’m in London next week. I’ll stand you a dinner at my club, the Savile. I’m there until my rooms at the Albany are ready for me. A. J. R._

_P.S. Left my moustache in Australia._

**Author's Note:**

> Baths: In the television series, Raffles books overnight rooms at the Turkish baths for himself and Bunny (I don’t know if this is canon for the books, though).
> 
> Crimes… at the old school: Romantic love at school is described by Alec Waugh in detail in several books. For example, see Morality and the Romantic Friendship, Chapter 7 of Public School Life: Boys, Parents, Masters (1922).
> 
> Sullivans: “Sullivan Powell Special Turkish Number One was its name. It was oval in shape and clung to one's lips; there was a hint of Incense about it, and a strong thick sweetness like liquorice; it pricked the nostrils in a sensual way, and if one blew one's nose afterwards, tar emerged. It became one of the secret joys of my university years… It was not a habit to be indulged in publicly, but at solitary moments when one was listening to Chopin, dreaming of romantic adventures, or reading Les fleurs du mal…”  
>  Michael Bloch (1991), Forbidden Pleasures, The Spectator.
> 
> Savile: Hornung was a member of The Savile Club. It’s still a club and it still has bedrooms.
> 
> Moustache: Raffles says in Le Premier Pas that he lost his moustache when he lost his innocence in Australia.


End file.
